Confederate Monument (Franklin, Tennessee)

Last updated
Confederate Monument
Chip
Confederate Monument, Franklin, Tennessee.jpg
The Confederate Monument in 2016
Year1899
MediumItalian marble
Location Williamson County Courthouse,
Franklin, Tennessee
Coordinates 35°55′31″N86°52′08″W / 35.92528°N 86.86889°W / 35.92528; -86.86889 Coordinates: 35°55′31″N86°52′08″W / 35.92528°N 86.86889°W / 35.92528; -86.86889
Owner United Daughters of the Confederacy [1]

The Confederate Monument, also known as Chip, or Our Confederate Soldiers, is located on the grounds of the Williamson County Courthouse in the county seat - Franklin, Tennessee, United States. Installed in 1899, it is an Italian marble statue portraying a single Confederate soldier atop a tall column and base. The Battle of Franklin took place here during the American Civil War, and was won by the Union. [1]

Contents

History

Dedication

The monument includes a 6 ft. 6 in.-tall Italian marble sculpture of a Confederate soldier shown at parade rest, on top of a tall column and base of granite and marble, which together are approximately 37 ft. 8 in. tall. [2] The whole monument cost "nearly $2,700" to create in the late 1890s. [1] [3] It was dedicated by the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on November 30, 1899. [4] Confederate General George Gordon attended the dedication, as did the widows and children of Brigadier General John Adams, and Tennessee Governor Benton McMillin. [4] The flag of the 32nd Tennessee Infantry Regiment was raised; The Tennessean noted that it had not been flown in Franklin since 1861. [4]

Chapters of the UDC had developed across the South in the late 19th century, when the women were instrumental in getting Confederate cemeteries funded and organized, and in conducting the work of documenting and commemorating Confederate contributions. UDC members wrote memoirs and textbooks in addition to raising funds for monuments.

Restorations

The monument was restored by the City of Franklin at a cost of $750 in 1980. [3] The city restored it again in 2010. [5] At the time, Mayor John Schroer opined, "This is an important piece of the city of Franklin." [5]

Call for its removal

On August 17, 2017 a petition was circulated calling for its removal. Another petition to keep the monument was also started. Both petitions had thousands of signatures by late August. Eric Stuckey, Franklin's city administrator, said the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act prevented the city from removing the monument without the consent of the Tennessee Historical Commission. As of May 2021, the issue is in litigation.[ citation needed ]

Description

The monument's inscription reads:

“ERECTED TO / CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS / BY FRANKLIN CHAPTER / NO. 14 / DAUGHTERS OF / THE CONFEDERACY / NOV. 30, A.D. 1899” “ IN HONOR AND MEMORY / OF OUR HEROES / BOTH PRIVATE AND CHIEF / OF THE / SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. / NO COUNTRY EVER HAD / TRUER SONS, / NO CAUSE / NOBLER CHAMPIONS, / NO PEOPLE / BOLDER DEFENDERS / THAN THE BRAVE SOLDIERS / TO WHOSE MEMORY / THIS STONE IS ERECTED.” “WOULD IT BE / A BLAME FOR US / IF THEIR MEMORY PART / FROM OUR LAND AND HEARTS / AND A WRONG TO THEM / AND A SHAME TO US. / THE GLORIES THEY WON / SHALL NOT WANE FROM US. / IN LEGEND AND LAY, OUR HEROES IN GRAY / SHALL EVER LIVE / OVER AGAIN FOR US.” “WE WHO SAW AND KNEW THEM WELL / ARE WITNESSES / TO COMING AGES / OF THEIR VALOR / AND FIDELITY. / TRIED AND TRUE. GLORY DROWNED / 1861-1865 [2]

The monument contains a USGS survey marker noting that in 1931 it was 648.82L Ft. above sea level. [2]

Related Research Articles

United Daughters of the Confederacy American non-profit charitable hereditary association of Southern women in the United States

The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.

Sam Davis Confederate spy

Sam Davis was a Confederate soldier executed by Union forces in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. He is popularly known as the Boy Hero of the Confederacy, although he was 21 when he died. He became a celebrated instance of Confederate memorialization in the late 1890s and early 1900s, eulogized by Middle Tennesseeans for his valor and sacrifice. Davis' story was popularized by editor J. B. Killebrew and later by Sumner Archibald Cunningham. Due in part to the story's themes of piety and masculinity, Cunningham's portrayal of Davis fit into mythology of the "Lost Cause" in the postwar South.

<i>Confederate War Memorial</i> (Dallas) Confederate monument previously displayed in Dallas, Texas, United States

The Confederate War Memorial is a 65 foot (20 m)-high monument that pays tribute to soldiers and sailors from Texas who served with the Confederate States of America (CSA) during the American Civil War. The monument was dedicated in 1897, following the laying of its cornerstone the previous year. Originally located in Sullivan Park near downtown Dallas, Texas, United States, the monument was relocated in 1961 to the nearby Pioneer Park Cemetery in the Convention Center District, next to the Dallas Convention Center and Pioneer Plaza.

Confederate Monument in Danville United States historic place

The Confederate Monument in Danville, located between Centre College and the Presbyterian Church of Danville at the corner of Main and College Streets in Danville, Kentucky, is a monument dedicated to the Confederate States of America that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The monument was dedicated in 1910 by the surviving veterans of the Confederacy of Boyle County, Kentucky and the Kate Morrison Breckinridge Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The monument consists of a granite pedestal and a marble statue resting thereon. The marble figure depicts Captain Robert D. Logan, who actually came from Lincoln County, Kentucky, but lived after the war in Boyle County. Captain Logan served under John Hunt Morgan in the 6th Kentucky Cavalry's Company A, and was captured after Morgan's Raid in Cheshire, Ohio on July 20, 1863, and spent much of the war afterwards in prison camps, particularly the Ohio State Penitentiary. He died on June 25, 1896, fourteen years before the construction of the monument. The granite pedestal is twelve feet tall, and uses pairs of Doric columns to decorate it. The main inscription reads: C. S. A. 1861 - 1865 What They Were the Whole World Knows.

Confederate Soldier Monument in Caldwell United States historic place

The Confederate Soldier Monument in Caldwell County, Kentucky is a historic statue located on the Caldwell County Courthouse south lawn in the county seat of Princeton, Kentucky, United States. It was erected in 1912 by the Tom Johnson Chapter No. 886 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

<i>Appomattox</i> (statue)

Appomattox is a bronze statue commemorating soldiers from Alexandria, Virginia, who had died while fighting for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The memorial was located in the center of the intersection of South Washington Street and Prince Street in the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria.

Ladies Memorial Association Womens organization in the American South

A Ladies' Memorial Association (LMA) is a type of organization for women that sprang up all over the American South in the years after the American Civil War. Typically, these were organizations by and for women, whose goal was to raise monuments in Confederate soldiers honor. Their immediate goal, of providing decent burial for soldiers, was joined with the desire to commemorate the sacrifices of Southerners and to propagate the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Between 1865 and 1900, these associations were a formidable force in Southern culture, establishing cemeteries and raising large monuments often in very conspicuous places, and helped unite white Southerners in an ideology at once therapeutic and political.

Confederate Memorial (Arlington National Cemetery) Monument in Arlington National Cemetery built in 1914

The Confederate Memorial is a memorial in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States, that commemorates members of the armed forces of the Confederate States of America who died during the American Civil War. Authorized in March 1906, former Confederate soldier and sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in November 1910 to design the memorial. It was unveiled by President Woodrow Wilson on June 4, 1914.

Sumner Archibald Cunningham

Sumner Archibald Cunningham was an American Confederate soldier and journalist. He was the editor of a short lived Confederate magazine called "Our Day" (1883-1884) published in New York. In 1893 he established the Confederate Veteran, a bimonthly magazine about veterans of the Confederate States Army until his death in 1913.

Memorial Hall, Vanderbilt University

Memorial Hall is a historic building on the Peabody College campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. It was built in 1935 as a dormitory hall for female descendants of Confederate States Army veterans. Its former name resulted in multiple lawsuits and student unrest. In August 2016, Vanderbilt announced it would reimburse the United Daughters of the Confederacy for their financial contribution and remove the word Confederate from the building.

The removal of Confederate monuments and memorials is an ongoing process in the United States since the 1960s. Many municipalities in the United States have removed monuments and memorials on public property dedicated to the Confederate States of America, and some, such as Silent Sam in North Carolina, have been torn down by protestors. The momentum to remove Confederate memorials increased dramatically following high-profile incidents including the Charleston church shooting (2015), the Unite the Right rally (2017), and the murder of George Floyd (2020). The removals have been driven by historical analysis that the monuments express and re-enforce white supremacy; memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous government, the Confederacy, whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery; and that the presence of these Confederate memorials over a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans.

<i>Gloria Victis</i> (Confederate monument)

Gloria Victis, also called Fame, is a Confederate monument in Salisbury, North Carolina. Cast in Brussels in 1891, Gloria Victis is one of two nearly-identical sculptures by Frederick Ruckstull.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy Monument is a Confederate monument in Cleveland, Tennessee owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It was sculpted in 1910 and installed in 1911.

Confederate Monument (Greenville, South Carolina)

The Confederate Monument is a shaft of granite topped by a marble statue of a soldier—the oldest public sculpture in Greenville—that memorializes the Confederate dead of the American Civil War from Greenville County, South Carolina. The monument is flanked by two period Parrott rifles manufactured at the West Point Foundry.

March to Freedom is a statue by Joe F. Howard, installed outside the Williamson County Courthouse in Franklin, Tennessee. The bronze sculpture depicts a United States Colored Troops soldier.

References

  1. 1 2 3 West, Emily (August 17, 2017). "Petition calls for removal of Confederate monument in downtown Franklin". The Tennessean. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 "Our Confederate Soldiers". Siris-artinventories.si.edu Library Catalog. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  3. 1 2 West, Emily (August 25, 2017). "Battle of petitions: Franklin divided on keeping Confederate statue in downtown". The Tennessean. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 "MONUMENT TO SOUTHERN VALOR" . The Tennessean. December 1, 1899. p. 5. Retrieved December 1, 2017 via Newspapers.com.
  5. 1 2 Tate, Mindy (July 9, 2010). "BREAKING NEWS: Franklin's Confederate Monument gets an early morning bath". Williamson Herald. Retrieved December 2, 2017.